


She Was So Warm

by AlexIsOkay



Category: Love Live! Sunshine!!
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-22
Updated: 2017-12-22
Packaged: 2019-02-18 06:34:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13094451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlexIsOkay/pseuds/AlexIsOkay
Summary: Ruby returns to Hakodate for the first time in three months, eager to see Leah again after only being able to text and call for so long. But a lot has changed about their friendship in the time they've been apart.





	She Was So Warm

Ruby Kurosawa’s stomach dipped a little bit as she felt the plane start to descend, and as she looked out the window she could watch the island of Hokkaido begin to grow larger and larger underneath her. It had been around three months since she had last been here, and just from looking down from above, she could already tell that the weather was going to be more agreeable this time around. While there was still snow resting on the tops of some of the mountains, it wasn’t the massive sheet that had covered the entire island the last time she had been there. It was early spring now, and even if the weather wasn’t exactly _warm_ , it was _warmer_.

Since her last visit to Hakodate, Ruby had been keeping in touch with Leah Kazuno, just as Chika had been with Sarah. What had started out as someone infrequent conversations, texting each other every couple of days to share snippets of what had been going on in their respective lives or to send links to new songs that they had discovered, had soon grown into something more. Before long the two were texting each other every single day, many times a day, to the point where the other members of Aqours often teased Ruby about how often she was on her phone. Although, that might have had less to do with simply being on her phone, and more to do with the goofy smiles that she tended to get every single time Leah’s name popped up on her screen. Even Dia, who was typically in denial over this sort of thing, had to admit that her little sister clearly had it bad.

When Leah had suggested that Ruby should come back to Hakodate to visit her, Ruby had been positively elated. It had taken a bit of bargaining and pleading to get both her parents and Dia to agree, and from there it had taken her even longer to actually scrounge together the money to fund such a trip, but eventually she had managed to do it. And, with a very excited text to Leah containing her flight number, Ruby had finally set her plans in stone.

The three weeks that passed between booking her flight and actually getting to board the plane had been the longest of Ruby’s life. It was embarrassing, but she had found herself counting every single day, looking forward to the date when she would finally get to travel back to Hakodate and see Leah again. And, finally, it had arrived.

As the plane dipped out of the sky and touched down on the runway, Ruby realized that the jumping and twisting sensation that she felt in her stomach wasn’t just because of the landing. She had been talking to Leah a lot recently, yes, but this would be the first time that she had actually seen the other girl in person in months. And… She couldn’t help but feel that their relationship had changed a lot since the last time they had been around each other. Maybe not in any explicit terms, admittedly, but something was definitely different.

Even after the plane touched down, it took Ruby a little while longer to get off of it and pick up her bags. From there she turned her phone back on, sending out two message: the first to Dia, letting her sister know that her flight had landed safely (she knew that Dia had probably been watching the flight tracker obsessively from the moment she had dropped Ruby off at the airport), and the second to Leah, letting her friend know that she had arrived. It didn’t take long her for to get a text back from Leah telling her where to meet up, and with a cheerful, excited smile, Ruby started to make her way towards the pickup and drop off area.

Ruby did have to admit, being alone in a crowd like this made her feel a little bit anxious. She had never traveled on her own before, and being surrounded by so many people gave her an immediate urge to grab onto a friend for comfort. The obvious problem there was that she didn’t have any friends around at the moment, and all she could do as a result was squeeze the handle of her luggage even more tightly, telling herself that she was going to be fine.

All of that anxiety seemed to leave her pretty quickly when she heard a familiar voice calling out to her.

“Ruby-chan!” As Ruby turned towards the sound of her own name she saw Leah standing there in the crowd of people, waving to her enthusiastically. Perhaps a bit too enthusiastically, as a moment later the dark-haired girl seemed to realize what she was doing, and a light flush began to cross over her own cheeks. Suddenly she slumped back down a bit, dropping her arm to her side and trying to look more casual about the whole situation. Ruby thought it was adorable.

“Thank you for meeting me here,” Ruby said, dragging her suitcase along behind her as she approached her friend. She knew that, technically, she could have gotten the bus from the airport further into the city, and could have ended up meeting Leah at her actual house, but… Navigating the bus system in Uchiura could already be stressful enough for her at times. Having to do that in a city that she wasn’t even familiar with would surely make it a thousand times worse.

“Well, of course,” Leah replied, still trying to keep that calm, cool attitude about herself, despite the fact that she was actually just as excited to see Ruby as Ruby was to see her. “You’re my guest, after all. I’m not just about to leave you stranded here.” She was cut off from saying anything else a moment later by the feeling of arms wrapping themselves around her body, and suddenly she realized that she was being hugged. That was a realization that came with even more blushing on Leah’s part, although she forced herself to reach up and hug back, wrapping her arms around Ruby in turn.

“Either way, I appreciate it,” Ruby insisted, finally stepping back to break the hug. “Traveling alone makes me kind of nervous…” she admitted. Leah looked up just in time to catch the way Ruby glanced down when she said that, as if it was something that she was embarrassed to be confessing to, and that only made the blush on her face burn even brighter still. Suddenly she was turning on her heels abruptly, simply so that Ruby wouldn’t be able to see.

“Well, Sarah is parked outside,” she said, starting to walk back towards the airport’s main entrance. “We shouldn’t keep her waiting too long.”

“Oh, of course!” Ruby agreed, quickly starting to follow along behind Leah as the other girl walked. But even then, she couldn’t wipe the dorky grin off her face. It was a thousand times worse than when they were just texting.

* * *

Sarah was, just as promised, parked in the pickup area outside the main entrance, and it didn’t take Ruby and Leah long to find the car. Ruby put her bags in the trunk before squeezing into the back alongside Leah, and Sarah looked back at the two of them over her shoulder as she started to pull out of the airport and back onto the main roads.

“It’s good to see you again, Ruby-chan. How was your flight in?”

“It was good!” Ruby replied, smiling up at Sarah from the back seat. “A lot less scary than flying in during a snowstorm,” she added on, laughing softly.

“Well, you picked a good time to visit,” Sarah said as the turned her attention back towards the roads in front of them. “The weather is supposed to be nice for the next couple of days. I’m sure you two will have a lot of fun.” As she said that, a knowing smile crossed over Sarah’s face, despite the fact that neither of the two girls in the back could see it. The amount of time Leah had been spent talking about Ruby’s visit hadn’t been lost on her, nor had the excitement that always seemed to creep into her voice every time the topic came up. Apparently she and Dia had that much in common. “Maybe we could even take a trip up to the hot springs,” she added on, unable to resist making that comment. And she didn’t even need to look into the back seat again to tell how red both of the girls had gone.

“Ruby-chan didn’t get much of a chance to see the historical areas last time she was here,” Leah said, breaking the silence before it had the chance to get too uncomfortable. “Like… Goryokaku, or Motomachi. So I thought maybe we could go see some of those.” She wasn’t actually sure if that was the sort of thing that Ruby had any interest in doing, but she remembered Ruby mentioning her own family’s history on a few occasions, and making comments about living in a traditional manor. With that in mind, she was hoping that this sort of thing might actually appeal to her friend. And, if the bright smile on Ruby’s face was anything to go off of, it seemed that it was.

“That sounds fun!” Ruby decided, causing Leah to smile faintly at the realization that her suggestion had been a good one.

“Well if you two need a ride anywhere just let me know,” Sarah chimed in from the front. “As long as I’m not working I’ll be happy to drive you.” Leah, meanwhile, had made sure to take the entire duration of Ruby’s visit off from their job. She didn’t want anything to get in the way of the two of them spending time together.

* * *

 

The rest of the car ride back to the Kazuno’s household was relatively quiet and uneventful. Sarah continued to catch up with Ruby about how she had been, and about what sorts of things she wanted to do on their trip. And it was a conversation that Ruby was perfectly happy to have! Still, she couldn’t quite shake the feeling that Sarah was sort of like a chaperone at the moment, and it was hard to really talk to Leah the way she wanted to or to say all of the things that she wanted to say while Sarah was there with them.

Eventually, though, they did make it back home, and Leah seemed all too eager to bring Ruby upstairs to her room, where she would be staying while she was there. Even though Ruby only had one suitcase and her backpack Leah had insisted on helping her carry her luggage up the stairs anyway. And finally, after what felt like far too long, the two of them were alone, Leah closing the door behind them as Ruby went over to put down her suitcase.

“So… This is my room. It hasn’t changed much,” Leah said, before silently chastising herself for stating the obvious. Ruby didn’t seem to mind, though, and was instead beginning to slowly walk around the space, carefully looking at every detail that presented itself. Sure enough, it didn’t look like anything was that different from the last time she had been there: idol merchandise still covered the shelves, and posters took up a good amount of the space on the walls. There were other trinkets and nicknacks mixed in with at all as well, though, including a snowglobe that Ruby remembered seeing the last time she was there.

“I like it,” Ruby replied. “It’s cute.” _Just like you._ She didn’t say that last part out loud, though. The first comment was already enough to have Leah blushing again. After speaking Ruby dipped down into her bags again, rummaging around for a few seconds before she managed to find the sleeping back that she was looking for. As she moved to lay it out in the space beside Leah’s bed, the other girl gave her a vaguely confused look.

“Are you… Gonna sleep on the floor?” Leah asked, before hastily scrambling to add on to what she had said. “I mean- You can have my bed, if you want. I can sleep down there.” While Ruby appreciated the offer, though, she was quick to shake her head.

“I would feel bad,” she insisted. “I don’t mind sleeping on the floor anyway! I do it all the time whenever Aqours travels somewhere.”

“Well… Alright,” Leah replied. “If you’re sure…”

* * *

 

The majority of the evening, save for a short break to eat dinner with Sarah, was spent up in Leah’s room, the two girls talking about every little thing that had happened to either one of them over the course of the past two months. Despite the fact that many of their stories had already been exchanged over text, or even over phone call, it still felt completely different when they were able to share them while sitting on Leah’s bed, five feet away from each other. Leah actually got to see the way Ruby’s eyes lit up when she talked about new songs and new dances that Aqours had been working on as they approached their final Love Live, and Ruby got to feel the box spring bouncing lightly underneath them thanks to how animated Leah got while she talked about her plans to form a new idol group after Sarah graduated.

Despite all the excitement and the fresh new comfort that seeing each other in person brought, though, there was also something that felt undeniably _different_ . Even though they had been talking to each other every single day for months now, Ruby couldn’t shake how _nervous_ she suddenly felt, now that she was actually there with Leah in person. And judging from half of Leah’s reactions and mannerisms over the course of the night, it seemed that the other girl felt the same way.

“..and then Mari-chan bought the entire store right then and there,” Ruby said, finishing up her account of a particularly eventful shopping trip she had gone on with her sister’s friends.

“You mean like… Bought everything in the store?” Leah asked.

“No,” Ruby replied, shaking her head.

“...Wow.”

“She’s like that sometimes,” Ruby giggled. The Kurosawa family was well off, of course, but the Oharas were on an entirely different level altogether.

After finishing her story Ruby looked up towards the clock sitting on Leah’s bedside table to see the time, only to realize that it still wasn’t nearly as late as she thought it was. Despite that fact, she felt exhausted. She had been up before the sun itself so that she could catch her flight (Dia had insisted on getting her to the airport far earlier than had actually proven to be necessary), and now all of the sleep that she hadn’t gotten the night before was catching up with her.

“Are you tired?” Leah asked, apparently taking notice of the exhaustion on Ruby’s face. “We can go to sleep, if you want to.”

“It’s not even that late yet,” Ruby started to protest, but she was quickly shut down by a shake of Leah’s head.

“It’s alright. We’ll have to be up pretty early if we wanna go sightseeing tomorrow anyway,” Leah insisted. “This is probably good.” After saying that Leah got off her bed, walking over to her dresser and digging out her pajamas. Normally she would have changed right there in her room- and even thinking about it now, she couldn’t come up with any logical reason not to. She and Ruby were school idols. They had both gotten changed backstage around other people plenty of times before. They had even been into each other’s dressing rooms at events once or twice. But suddenly, the thought of doing something like that with Ruby in the room, or the thought of Ruby doing something like that with _her_ in the room…

“I’ll go change in the bathroom, you can stay in here!” Leah blurted out, before dashing out of the room just a little bit too quickly, and pulling the door shut behind her just a little bit too forcefully, leaving Ruby standing there in a confused dazed as she wondered what had just happened.

* * *

 

Just as Leah had promised, the next morning came bright and early, and that was how Ruby discovered that the other girl really wasn’t a morning person. Despite the fact that she was still pretty tired from her flight the day before, Ruby had been up and ready to go at the first chime of the alarm, bouncing out of her sleeping bag with an eagerness towards the day in front of her. Leah, meanwhile, had only retreated even farther underneath her blankets when she heard the noise, and it had taken a good amount of prodding before she was finally willing to emerge.

From there the morning had consisted of a quick breakfast, followed by Ruby having a particularly stressful encounter with the Kazuno’s unfamiliar shower. But eventually they had gotten out of the house, and made their way towards one of the historic sites on their list while the day was still young.

Goryokaku was unlike anything Ruby had ever seen in Uchiura. She knew that the Kurosawa manor had been around for ages, and that there were plenty of stories behind it, but it still felt like it paled in comparison the sheer scale and history of the massive fortress. And even if history had never been the most exciting subject to her (a trip like this was probably a little more Hanamaru’s speed), she could still appreciate the beauty and the importance of being in a place like this.

“It’s amazing to think that people built this with their own hands…” Ruby mused, staring up at one of the massive walls that ran adjacent to the path they were on. Leah was right beside her, and Sarah, who had chosen to spend the first part of the day with them since she didn’t have to be into work until that afternoon, was walking on the path just ahead of them.

“It’s impressive, isn’t it?” she agreed, glancing back at the other two girls over her shoulder. “And they did it without all of the technology we have today too. I can barely imagine how much work it must have taken.”

“Probably still not as much work as getting Leah-chan out of bed,” Ruby teased, glancing over at the suddenly very flustered girl.

“Hey!” Leah protested. “That’s not fair! You can’t tell me you actually _like_ getting up this early in the morning.”

“You could have slept in if you had wanted to,” Sarah chided, wagging a finger at her younger sister over her shoulder. “Nobody made you come here.”

“Yeah, but… Ruby-chan came a long way to visit us. It’d be a waste not to go out and do stuff while she’s here,” Leah grumbled. She slouched down a bit more as all the attention fell on her, stuffing her hands down into her pockets and glancing away. Ruby smiled faintly when she heard her friend say that, and suddenly Leah felt Ruby bumping up against her in a gesture that felt far more intimate than it probably actually was.

“Well, I’m glad we came here,” Ruby promised, looking up towards the enormous wall towering over them once again. “This is nice.” Every time Leah started to think she couldn’t blush any harder, Ruby just had to go and prove her wrong.

* * *

 

The trip to Goryokaku had been followed up by lunch at a little cafe, at which point Sarah had headed off to work, leaving Ruby and Leah alone for the rest of the day. They had spent a while trying to decide on what to do from there, before eventually deciding to visit the shopping district, to see if they could find anything fun for sale. Dia, in what Mari and Kanan had been sure to draw far too much attention to as an example of her finally cutting loose and letting fun prevail for once, had given Ruby a bit of spending money before her little sister had left on her trip. And while Ruby had made up her mind to bring something back for Dia, as a thank you, that still left her with a decent chunk to spend on herself. And possibly on Leah as well.

Many of the stores in the shopping district were blatant tourist traps, but despite the eye rolls Leah gave any time she saw one of them, Ruby was still very much a tourist, and she was continuously sucked in by every stuffed animal and cutesy keychain that she saw. It had taken a fair bit of effort on Leah’s part to steer Ruby towards stores that weren’t nearly as overpriced and packed to the brim with kitschy crap.

Eventually, the two of them had ended up in a clothing store, much to Leah’s surprise. Despite the fact that she knew Ruby helped out quite a bit with the costumes that Aqours wore, she had never pegged Ruby to be the type who was that interested in fashion. Now she was discovering how wrong she had been about that.

“Leah-chan! Are you ready?” Ruby’s voice called out from inside the changing room.

“Yeah,” Leah called back. “I’m ready.” Lacking a bit of the same passion that Ruby herself had for this sort of thing, she had elected to wait outside while Ruby tried on some of the outfits that she had picked out. As the door opened up, though, and Ruby came stepping out of the changing room, Leah nearly choked on the ice that she had been eating out of the bottom of her leftover drink cup. Ruby looked, for lack of a better word, adorable. The outfit that Ruby had put together fit the season perfectly, as far as Leah was concerned. A light jacket and a long skirt that would be warm against the chill, but not too warm, picked out in deep, earthy colors that offset her bright red hair perfectly, while also managing to highlight her vibrant green eyes. It all came together so nicely that Leah was left speechless, and she forgot that she was even supposed to say something until Ruby prompted her to do so.

“Well?” Ruby asked, giving a little twirl so that Leah could see it from all angles, causing the skirt to flare out a bit as she did so. “What do you think?”

“I- It looks- It’s nice,” Leah said, finally able to manage to string together a couple of words in a semi-coherent fashion. They came up horrendously short of what she had actually wanted to say, though, and the somewhat lackluster response left Ruby with an obvious sense of disappointment.

“Only nice?” she replied, a tiny frown coming over her face. “I guess earth tones aren’t really my colors anyway…”

“N-No! I mean- You look really good in it!” Leah blurted out. The sudden assertiveness of the statement startled Ruby, especially in contrast to the hesitation that Leah had shown just a moment before. Bright green eyes flicked up from the skirt she was wearing to lock onto Leah’s, and after the initial surprise faded, a smile returned to Ruby’s face.

“Really?” she asked.

“Y-Yeah. Really,” Leah murmured out. She quickly broke the eye contact to look down at her own feet, but that only meant that she had let her guard down. A moment later and Leah found Ruby grabbing at her hands, pulling her up to her feet.

“Let’s pick something out for you then, too!” Ruby decided. “We’ll find you something that looks just as good!”

“W-Wait, hold on! I told you I wasn’t gonna try anything on!” Despite her protests, though, Leah found herself getting dragged over towards the racks of clothing anyway, and Ruby looked so excited that she didn’t really have the heart to put up much more of a fight. Before she knew it she was simply standing there watching as Ruby looked through the clothing and tried to find something that Leah would look good in. Ruby continuously asked for her opinion, and Leah continuously insisted that she didn’t have one. She trusted Ruby’s fashion sense far more than she trusted her own anyway.

Soon enough Leah had a stack of clothing in her arms, and she was being shoved back towards one of the changing rooms. “Try it on and let me see how you look!” Ruby urged.

“Alright, alright! Stop shoving me!” Leah huffed, getting pushed past the threshold of the door and into the changing room. The door swung shut behind her immediately afterwards, and she was left standing there with the clothes that Ruby had given her, staring down at them, and then back up at herself in the mirror. How had she ended up in this situation? Gay thoughts. Gay thoughts were always how she ended up in these situations.

With a small sigh, Leah started to change into the outfit that Ruby had given her. The clothing was all dark- shades of gray and deep purples and reds. Ruby had apparently paid attention to her preferences. It was a nice early-spring outfit as well, just like Ruby’s own. A sweater, a skirt that came down to around her knees, leggings to go underneath it, even a scarf that looked like a nice mix of fashionable and practical. Leah actually sort of hated how much she liked it.

It didn’t take her all that long to finish getting changed, and soon enough she was standing there in the full ensemble, taking one more chance to look herself over before turning back to the door. She was embarrassed to realize just how much she actually had to steel her nerves before opening it up and letting Ruby see her. “Well?” she started to ask, although before she could even finish that single word Ruby was squirming in delight.

“You look amazing, Leah-chan!” she declared, bouncing up on her toes and clapping her hands together in excitement. “It looks so cute on you!”

“C-Cute?” Leah thought of herself as a lot of things, but never cute.

“Mhmm!” Ruby insisted. “Are you going to buy it?”

“I- I’m not sure.”

“You should! You’d look so good in it!” That was really all Leah needed to hear to make up her mind, and suddenly she was giving in and nodding in agreement.

“Alright,” she conceded. “I will.”

“Yay!” Ruby cheered, before grabbing Leah by the hand and dragging her towards the front of the store. “Let’s go!”

“H-Hey! I told you to stop that!”

“You told me to stop shoving you,” Ruby giggled. “You didn’t say anything about pulling!”

* * *

 

“What if they’re doing something inappropriate right now?? Give me my phone back!” Dia reached and grabbed at Kanan as she protested, but despite her efforts, her fellow third-year was doing a good job of keeping said phone away from her.

“She doesn’t need you checking in on her, Dia,” Kanan insisted. “She’s a big girl now. She can enjoy this trip on her own.”

“But they could be- they could be touching each other! Or taking each other’s clothes off!”

“Ohhh, Leah-chan!” Mari hummed out from where she was sitting on Dia’s bed. “Your tongue is so soft!”

“Not as soft as yours, Ruby-chan!” Kanan played along.

“Don’t even joke about that!” Dia snapped, throwing herself onto Kanan in a desperate attempt to get at her phone again. The force was enough to send them both stumbling backwards, hitting the floor with a loud thud, Dia landing on top of her friend. Despite that, Kanan didn’t seem too upset. In fact, she was left with the biggest shit-eating grin on her face.

“Oooh. Just think, they could be in a position like this right now,” Kanan teased.

“Do you think Ruby-chan is brave enough to top?” Mari chimed in.

“Don’t say things like that!” Dia whimpered out, burying her face into her hands and folding over on top of Kanan. “Ruby is a good girl…”

“Shoot,” Kanan murmured out. “I think we broke her.”

* * *

 

Leah had felt nice walking around the city in her new clothes. The fact that Ruby was also wearing an outfit that she had just purchased probably helped as well- even though the outfits themselves didn’t actually match each other in any way, there was still the vague sense that the two of them went together somehow. It was something that Leah found herself enjoying.

After the clothing shopping the two of them had spent a while longer wandering around the city, with no particular destination in mind. They had simply gone around to anything that caught their eye, and Ruby had even ended up finding a present for Dia in the form of a little stuffed Orca whale. Eventually they had even met back up with Sarah, after she had gotten out of work, and the three of them had gone out to get some dinner. It had all been going well, until Sarah had asked a question that had nearly given Leah a nose bleed.

“Do you two still wanna go to the hot springs?” When Sarah had suggested the idea on the car ride home the previous day, Leah hadn’t actually taken the offer seriously. She had figured that her sister was just teasing her. Now, though, it was becoming clear that Sarah was entirely serious in her suggestion (and seemed to know damn well what she was doing, too). The only thing that made it worse was that Ruby, in her infinite politeness and inability to feel like an imposing guest, felt compelled to say yes to just about any suggestion that either of the Kazuno sisters made. Hot springs included. So now the plan was set, and Sarah had decided that after she got off work the next night she would drive the three of them up into the mountains a bit, so they could enjoy a relaxing bath that Leah was sure not to find relaxing at all.

From that moment on, it was the only thing that Leah could actually bring herself to focus on, no matter how hard she tried to get mind to latch onto _anything_ else. The thoughts hung over her for the rest of their dinner, they hung over her on the drive back home, they even hung over her after they were all back at their house, sitting around watching television until it was late enough to go to sleep. By the time they were changing into their pajamas the thoughts were only getting even worse, since she knew that tomorrow evening, she wouldn’t be able to hide in a different room the way she could now. The only thing that snapped her out of those thoughts was the sound of Ruby’s actual voice, breaking through the silence after they had both been trying to sleep for a couple of minutes.

“Leah-chan?” the other girl whispered out. “Are you still awake?”

“Yeah,” Lean replied. “Is something wrong? Can you not sleep?” It was quiet again for a few seconds after she asked that, Ruby apparently taking her time before she actually decided on how to respond.

“No,” she said. “It’s not that. I just… Wanted to say thank you.”

“Thank you?” Leah repeated, clearly not quite understanding.

“Mhmm,” Ruby murmured out. “I had a really fun day. And… I’m looking forward to the rest of the this trip, too. So… Thank you.”

“Well… I had fun, too,” Leah promised. “And I’m glad you’re here. So, thank you too.” Even though Leah couldn’t see anything in the dark, she could hear Ruby giggling softly. It actually made her thankful for the blindness of their situation, since it meant that Ruby couldn’t see her blushing.

“Goodnight, Leah-chan,” Ruby hummed, already sounding sleepy.

“Goodnight, Ruby-chan,” Leah said back.

* * *

 

Her conversation with Ruby the night before had given Leah a brief reprieve from hot springs-related thoughts, but when she woke up the next morning, she found that they were back in full force. They plagued her during breakfast, during their stroll around some more of the historic areas of Hakodate, during lunch, and especially when Sarah finally got back from work and showed up to drive them into the mountains. It had been a long day for Leah already, filled with very stressful, very gay thoughts.

She had been strangely quiet on the drive there, and Ruby had probably ended up talking more to Sarah than she had to Leah herself thanks to it. By the time they got out of the car and started walking inside Leah practically refused to take her eyes off of her feet, and when they got into the changing rooms she made a point of choosing a locker as far away from Ruby as possible. She also made a point of taking far longer than she should have to actually get changed, and as it turned out, that gamble paid off: by the time she finally stepped out into the bathing area, towel wrapped around her, Ruby and Sarah were both already in the water, and anything below Ruby’s shoulders was safely obscured from view.

Or at least, it was, until Ruby was suddenly raising an arm up out of the water to wave to Leah, exposing that much more of herself in the process.

“Leah-chan!” she called out, smiling brightly at the sight of her friend. “We were starting to worry about you!”

“I’m fine!” Leah blurted out, far too quickly and far too loudly to actually seem like she was fine. Her eyes dropped to her feet once again, trying to avoid looking anywhere in Ruby’s general direction.

“What are you waiting for, sis?” Sarah called out, the sort of teasing smirk that only an older sister was capable of spreading over her face. “It’s a lot nicer inside the water than it is outside.” Leah huffed quietly at that, and then, with one last glance around, made the transition between shedding her towel and jumping into the hot spring in record time. She entered the water with enough force to kick up quite a splash, although that only caused Ruby to squeal with delight.

“Leah-chan!” Ruby giggled. “You got me all wet!” Leah was too busy sinking as far down into the water as she could to actually respond to that unfortunate statement.

But at least, once that initial turmoil was over, relaxing in the hot spring with the steam surrounding them actually proved to be quite nice. The water was cloudy enough that she didn’t have to worry about seeing anything that she wasn’t meant to see, and that was probably more of a weight off of her mind that it should have been.

“I wish we had something like this closer to Uchiura,” Ruby mused, leaning her head back against the rocks as she stared up at the night sky.

“Have you never been to a hot spring before?” Sarah asked.

“I have, but… You have to go a lot farther to get to one. So we don’t go there very often.”

“Well… You’re always welcome to come here,” Leah promised. It was the first thing she had said in a while, but hearing her speak up again caused the smile to return to Ruby’s face. Right after she said that Leah felt a disturbance in the surface of the water, and when she looked back up she realized that Ruby was suddenly a lot closer than she had been just a minute ago. That made her face flush red, although thankfully now, she could pass it off on the heat from the steam.

“I like visiting here,” Ruby agreed. “But you should come to Uchiura some time too! It might not be as big as Hakodate, and it might not have as many attractions, but… It’s home, and I love it there,” she said. “And I’d like for you to get to see it too.” If having Ruby get physically close had been enough to make Leah blush, having her get emotionally close like this was enough to make the poor girl’s face burn up entirely, and to make her heart beat out of her chest.

“I- I’d like that a lot,” Leah replied. “Maybe, next time we get a break from school…”

“Really??” Ruby asked, and the excitement in her voice was enough that, if Leah had still had any doubt about making the trip, it was gone now.

“Yeah. It’ll be… Nice. To see where you live, and everything.” Leah’s gaze had met with Ruby’s as she said that, making the eagerness shining behind those bright green eyes all the more apparent. Every time she saw Ruby smile like that it made her chest feel like it was filled with so many butterflies it was about to burst, and it was enough to make Leah smile back as well, however faintly it might have been. Sarah, however, uncontent to let a single nice moment go by without rubbing her mischievous hands all over it, couldn’t help but choose that moment to cut in.

“I’m starting to get a little lightheaded,” she commented, lazily drifting her way over towards the edge of the water. “Think we should get out?”

“Alright!” Ruby cheerfully agreed. She began to stand up, and Leah nearly dove down under the water.

* * *

 

Compared to the water in the hot springs, the water by the ocean was positively freezing. Even though they weren’t actually in said water, Leah could still feel the chill coming off of it as she and Ruby walked along the sand. That chill was only made worse by the fact that the sun had long since set- it was close to midnight now, cold silver moonlight casting surprisingly crisp shadows of the two girls while the few stars that were bright enough to cut through the haze of light pollution cast by the city just beyond the edges of their temporary, private little world shone down on them. It was late, and they were both tired, but Ruby had wanted to take this walk, insisting that beaches were always more beautiful at night. Leah had been skeptical at first.

Now that she was here with Ruby, she could only wonder how she had always been so blind.

Hands were stuffed down into pockets of coats that were just a bit thicker than anything that they would have worn had the sun still been out, and boots crunched against the ground, struggling to leave their imprint in the frozen sand and unmelted snow. Breath curled up in little wisps, highlighted for fractions of a second by the moonlight before disappearing into the night. It only drew more attention to how much faster Leah’s own breathing was compared to Ruby’s.

“Are you sure you’re not too cold?” Leah eventually asked. She knew that it probably stayed a lot warmer in Uchiura, and that Ruby might not be used to these temperatures, but her question was met with a simple shake of the head.

“It’s nice,” Ruby insisted. Her cheeks had gone rosy from the frigid wind that continued to nip against them, but she didn’t seem to mind. “We can go back if you’re getting cold, though,” she added on.

“No, I’m alright,” Leah quickly replied. “I’m used to this.” She traveled a few more steps after that, only to find herself bumping into Ruby. The other girl had stopped rather abruptly, and as Leah looked up she saw that Ruby was now standing still, staring out over the ocean, over the way slivers of silver reflected off the crest of each wave and little chunks of ice continued to bob about in the water, holding on just a bit longer against spring’s slow advance. Leah creased her brow, silently trying to find the reason for this sudden pause.

“Is something wrong?” she asked, following Ruby’s gaze out over the water, hoping to see an answer there.

“Do moments like these ever make you wonder when you’ll have another one like them?” Ruby asked. The question seemed to come from nowhere, and Leah wasn’t quite sure how to respond, so Ruby took the silence as an opportunity to elaborate. “Like… When the next time the two of us will be standing here together, on this beach, underneath this moon will be. Or if it will even ever happen again at all.”

“That’s… A kind of depressing way to think about,” Leah replied. “Worrying about when a moment will end, or how long it’ll be before you have another one, instead of just letting yourself enjoy it while it does still last…” She had almost been afraid to disagree with Ruby, especially on something that the other girl seemed to be so deep in thought about. But as Leah turned her eyes back towards her friend, she could see a smile pulling up the corners of Ruby’s mouth.

“Yeah,” Ruby agreed, giving a slight nod. “I think so, too. I used to think about that sort of stuff a lot… I used to worry about a lot of things,” she admitted. “But now I think, if this moment really is rare, and if it might not happen again for a long time… That just means I have to make it as special as I can while it’s still here,” Ruby concluded, turning from the ocean back towards Leah. Her smile had come back in full force now, and something about the moonlight made it look more beautiful than it had been any other time Leah had ever seen it.

“I think this moment is already pretty special,” Leah said softly, only able to hold her eyes on Ruby’s for a few seconds before she was breaking away again, looking down towards the snowy sand instead.

“Maybe,” Ruby replied. “But… I think there’s something that could make it even more special.” Hearing those words made Leah’s heart jump up into her throat, and just as quickly as her eyes had broken away from Ruby, they were back on her again. Leah’s mouth opened, but it took a few tries for her to get a sound out.

“W-What something?” she asked. Her voice shook, and she hoped she could pretend it was because of the cold. She didn’t get a clear answer, though, question instead met with little more than a playful smile from Ruby.

“Close your eyes, Leah-chan,” the redhead giggled. If it had been anyone else, even her own sister, Leah would have demanded more explanation. But with Ruby, her eyes were closed without a second thought. Everything was dark now, and it made Leah all the more aware of the sounds and the feelings of everything around her. The air still biting at her skin, the waves gently washing up beside them, the hum of cars not all that far away- the sound of footsteps crunching closer to her. The feeling of hands on her shoulders.

“Ruby?” she whispered out, as if speaking too loudly would shatter the moment. But she still didn’t get a real response.

“Shhh,” she heard the other girl whisper back. Leah felt the sound as much as she heard it, warm air sending tingles across her skin and making her realize just how close the two of them were standing now. And then she felt an even greater warmth, softly pressing against her lips.

It took Leah a second to realize what was happening. And even after she did, it took her another second or two to figure out how to react. But as she felt Ruby’s lips against her own, arms loosely draped around her neck, Leah began to realize just how damn _cold_ she had been. She hadn’t noticed it when she had just been standing there, but now she was freezing, and Ruby was so _warm_. Leah stepped even closer, and despite the layers and layers of clothing between them, she could still feel the heat coming off of Ruby’s body. She moved her arms around Ruby’s waist, and Ruby tightened her arms around the back of Leah’s neck in turn. Leah’s hands were still shaking. But it wasn’t from the cold, and she no longer cared to pretend that it was.

Their embrace felt like it lasted for a lifetime, and even then Leah still felt desperate for more when Ruby eventually pulled away. She finally opened her eyes again for the first time since Ruby had told her to close them, and somehow, despite being fully aware of everything that had just happened, she was still startled to see Ruby’s face so close to her own. Her mouth opened again as she watched bright green eyes stare back at her, and just like before, no words came out. Leah’s face was burning so badly that she had to wonder how she had ever been cold in the first place, and, unable to find anything to say, she ended up burying her face into Ruby’s shoulder to hide herself from further embarrassment. And Ruby just giggled softly, sliding her arms down from Leah’s neck towards her back, pulling the other girl into a proper hug.

“Do you want to go back?” she asked.

“No,” Leah whispered, shaking her head against Ruby’s neck. “I like this.”

“Good,” Ruby replied. “I do too.”


End file.
